SMITHFIELD, N.C. — Haley Fugate is speaking out about her sister-in-law Bridgette Morgan Smith.
“I don’t know how she could ever do this. I really don’t,” Fugate said.
Police are now calling Smith a person of interest after the body parts of two infants were found under 102 Hartley Drive in Smithfield.
Fugate says Smith has a drug problem, one that the 40-year-old has battled for decades.
“It has been a spiral, like a roller coaster in eight years. She will come and go as she pleases. She won’t call and check on her kids,” Fugate said.
Fugate lives at that Hartley Drive home with her fiance, Smith’s brother, along with Smith’s mother. Together they’re raising two of Smith’s children.
Fugate said Smith would come and go over the years, but that they haven’t seen her in three weeks.
Warrants show Smith’s brother was running a cable under the house over the weekend when he found two trash bags in the crawl space. Police confirm the remains of the infants were inside.
Warrants also revealed Smith may have been pregnant ten times. At this point, police say only three children are accounted for.
“When we would ask her she would deny it to our face. She would wear big hoodies to cover it up. Pam knew nothing about it,” Fugate said.
Fugate came to her mother in law’s defense … she says no one in the family had any idea what was in that crawl space or what Smith may have been capable of.
As for those infants, Fugate said the dead babies could have been under the house for more than two years.
“What would your message to Bridgette be at this point?” a CBS North Carolina reporter asked.
“To turn herself in. She needs to turn herself in to make it easier on her kids, for us, just for everybody. She needs to turn herself in,” Fugate responded.
